Post: #1

http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-buchanan.html

Quote: In his Kremlin defense of Russia's annexation of Crimea, Vladimir Putin, even before he began listing the battles where Russian blood had been shed on Crimean soil, spoke of an older deeper bond.

Crimea, said Putin, "is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilization and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus."

Russia is a Christian country, Putin was saying.

This speech recalls last December's address where the former KGB chief spoke of Russia as standing against a decadent West:

"Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values. Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation."

Heard any Western leader, say, Barack Obama, talk like that lately?

Indicting the "Bolsheviks" who gave away Crimea to Ukraine, Putin declared, "May God judge them."

What is going on here?

With Marxism-Leninism a dead faith, Putin is saying the new ideological struggle is between a debauched West led by the United States and a traditionalist world Russia would be proud to lead.

In the new war of beliefs, Putin is saying, it is Russia that is on God's side. The West is Gomorrah.

Western leaders who compare Putin's annexation of Crimea to Hitler's Anschluss with Austria, who dismiss him as a "KGB thug," who call him "the alleged thief, liar and murderer who rules Russia," as the Wall Street Journal's Holman Jenkins did, believe Putin's claim to stand on higher moral ground is beyond blasphemous.

But Vladimir Putin knows exactly what he is doing, and his new claim has a venerable lineage. The ex-Communist Whittaker Chambers who exposed Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy, was, at the time of his death in 1964, writing a book on "The Third Rome."

The first Rome was the Holy City and seat of Christianity that fell to Odoacer and his barbarians in 476 A.D. The second Rome was Constantinople, Byzantium, (today's Istanbul), which fell to the Turks in 1453. The successor city to Byzantium, the Third Rome, the last Rome to the old believers, was — Moscow.

Putin is entering a claim that Moscow is the Godly City of today and command post of the counter-reformation against the new paganism.

Putin is plugging into some of the modern world's most powerful currents.

Not only in his defiance of what much of the world sees as America's arrogant drive for global hegemony. Not only in his tribal defense of lost Russians left behind when the USSR disintegrated.

He is also tapping into the worldwide revulsion of and resistance to the sewage of a hedonistic secular and social revolution coming out of the West.

In the culture war for the future of mankind, Putin is planting Russia's flag firmly on the side of traditional Christianity. His recent speeches carry echoes of John Paul II whose Evangelium Vitae in 1995 excoriated the West for its embrace of a "culture of death."

What did Pope John Paul mean by moral crimes?

The West's capitulation to a sexual revolution of easy divorce, rampant promiscuity, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, assisted suicide — the displacement of Christian values by Hollywood values.

Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum writes that she was stunned when in Tbilisi to hear a Georgian lawyer declare of the former pro-Western regime of Mikhail Saakashvili, "They were LGBT."

"It was an eye-opening moment," wrote Applebaum. Fear and loathing of the same-sex-marriage pandemic has gone global. In Paris, a million-man Moral Majority marched in angry protest.

Author Martha Gessen, who has written a book on Putin, says of his last two years, "Russia is remaking itself as the leader of the anti-Western world."

But the war to be waged with the West is not with rockets. It is a cultural, social, moral war where Russia's role, in Putin's words, is to "prevent movement backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state."

Would that be the "chaotic darkness" and "primitive state" of mankind, before the Light came into the world?

This writer was startled to read in the Jan-Feb. newsletter from the social conservative World Council of Families in Rockford, Ill., that, of the "ten best trends" in the world in 2013, number one was "Russia Emerges as Pro-Family Leader."

In 2013, the Kremlin imposed a ban on homosexual propaganda, a ban on abortion advertising, a ban on abortions after 12 weeks and a ban on sacrilegious insults to religious believers.

"While the other super-powers march to a pagan world-view," writes WCF's Allan Carlson, "Russia is defending Judeo-Christian values. During the Soviet era, Western communists flocked to Moscow. This year, World Congress of Families VII will be held in Moscow, Sept. 10-12."

Will Vladimir Putin give the keynote? In the new ideological Cold War, whose side is God on now?

Post: #2

Follow the money..

Post: #3

Looks like more Neo cons trying to start WW3.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/...latestnews

Russia has every right to keep its troops in Transnister. There was a war..Moldova didn't win it and by treaty Russians are peacekeepers.
I seriously think the US wants a war.I see them doing nothing to de escalate the situation. Do they even realize that the avg. American despises our own gov't atm?

Post: #4

There is great irony in that what was once the atheist Soviet state has now become a bastion of Orthodox faith.

Indeed God works in mysterious ways.

Post: #5

Russia and its people were always deeply religious. The heart of the Russian peasant is an obstinate, mystical one. Always has been.

The Soviet period, seen in perspective of all Russian history, was only a brief interlude. Bolshevism was a virus inserted into the Russian body, which laid Russia low for a time, and caused much damage. But the Russian patiently guarded his icons, tended his holy relics, and clung precariously to his traditions, awaiting the day when the Bolshevist disease too would pass.

Post: #6

Another update in cultural issues in this vein:

Syria now makes Russian language study compulsory in schools. This is a big deal...

http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrut...study.html

Post: #7

Very interesting, some people say Russia is collapsing, but their leaders have recognised, the harmfulness of social revolution. Social cohesion with embracing traditional values ensures that there is a support system for people when the money runs out. The only thing binding those in the West is material wealth and perhaps government support. All of which is tragically transient.

Post: #8

As sad as this may sound, I would take Putin as a dictator over the current "Democratic-Republic" in the U.S. if that meant seeing my community and its subsequent values restored.

Post: #9

When there is a huge fight involving a group of teenage boys, it is a bad moment for a father to be told that his son was the ringleader of the fracas and not the angel he thought him to be.

More and more Americans are realising that their government is often more to blame than not.

Post: #10

(06-06-2014 08:51 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:  As sad as this may sound, I would take Putin as a dictator over the current "Democratic-Republic" in the U.S. if that meant seeing my community and its subsequent values restored.

Like England's 100 year war in France, the fighting didn't directly affect the average Englishman. However, when the war in France finally failed, England did not suffer a French counter-invasion but the War of the Roses which led to the Anglo-Welsh Tudor reign.

The US has reached its 100th year of foreign wars which is clearly contrary to its constitution. It will inevitably cause some sort of change back home when US foreign policy finally meets its match.

Post: #11

(06-06-2014 08:51 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:  As sad as this may sound, I would take Putin as a dictator over the current "Democratic-Republic" in the U.S. if that meant seeing my community and its subsequent values restored.

I have to disagree with you. With all their faults, i can assure you, you do not want either a typical dictator, or a thugocracy like Putin`s. The US have no knowledge on what is really a dictatorship.

Post: #12

(06-07-2014 10:15 AM)Mekorig Wrote:  The US have no knowledge on what is really a dictatorship.

Sure. But this discussion misses the whole point, which is that there are many, many types of freedom, and freedom from dictatorship is merely one of them. In the U.S. one certainly does not have actual freedom of speech, for instance. And, frankly, actual freedom of speech is a human impossibility.

Post: #13

(04-04-2014 12:21 PM)jimukr104 Wrote:  Do they even realize that the avg. American despises our own gov't atm?

The government knows, which is why they lean on moral outrage issues. The truth is, they know that there isn't a united or organized front to challenge them. They are betting against the cattle, and they always will.

Post: #14

(06-07-2014 10:15 AM)Mekorig Wrote:  

(06-06-2014 08:51 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:  As sad as this may sound, I would take Putin as a dictator over the current "Democratic-Republic" in the U.S. if that meant seeing my community and its subsequent values restored.

I have to disagree with you. With all their faults, i can assure you, you do not want either a typical dictator, or a thugocracy like Putin`s. The US have no knowledge on what is really a dictatorship.

Most countries are.

Post: #15

Freedom is a construction that has no basis in politics. Human beings are social beings, politics are institutionalization of social life. It's comprised of obligations and rights. People bitch about freedom only to give themselves some meaning and supposed value, and then climb a tower from which they can bombard other people with their awesomeness.

When people talk about their "freedom" i immediately hear "rights". You are not free. You have more rights than other people. Your government gave you rights. Your government will take them when necessary. You didn't claim anything. Your society (and every society imposes obligations on it's members) gave you those rights. Politics is empirical area of study. Freedom is philosophical. Your government doesn't owe shit to you, and hence it won't grant shit to you if it doesn't have to. If rights granted to you by an institution is "freedom" to you, than you are in a sad and pathetic state of mind.

America grants rights to it's citizens because it can do so without damage. America will take those rights once it becomes too dangerous for government. It's not freedom. Freedom cannot be taken just like that. Rights can.

Post: #16

(06-08-2014 08:05 AM)Orion Wrote:  Your government doesn't owe shit to you, and hence it won't grant shit to you if it doesn't have to. If rights granted to you by an institution is "freedom" to you, than you are in a sad and pathetic state of mind.

Actually, if I pay taxes and live as a healthy law abiding citizen, the government does owe me basic rights.

Government is a more modern term for "ruling class".

The ruling class is allowed to exist by the good will of the common people.

What happens when the ruling class abuses the common people for too long and their good will ceases to exist completely?

History books will give you the answer. I am not saying that the U.S. is that way currently, but it is certainly following history.

Post: #17

(04-05-2014 12:53 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Russia and its people were always deeply religious. The heart of the Russian peasant is an obstinate, mystical one. Always has been.

The Soviet period, seen in perspective of all Russian history, was only a brief interlude. Bolshevism was a virus inserted into the Russian body, which laid Russia low for a time, and caused much damage. But the Russian patiently guarded his icons, tended his holy relics, and clung precariously to his traditions, awaiting the day when the Bolshevist disease too would pass.

Another interesting point, there's some interest in the Orthodox church among some evangelicals. As they see it, Orthodoxy is probably closer to the pre-split church than Catholicism, and Protestantism has absolutely lost its way.

This movement is definitely small but there's a chance that it gains some steam as people defect the western churches for a more authentic church.

(06-07-2014 10:15 AM)Mekorig Wrote:  

(06-06-2014 08:51 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:  As sad as this may sound, I would take Putin as a dictator over the current "Democratic-Republic" in the U.S. if that meant seeing my community and its subsequent values restored.

I have to disagree with you. With all their faults, i can assure you, you do not want either a typical dictator, or a thugocracy like Putin`s. The US have no knowledge on what is really a dictatorship.

I agree with that Mekorig - unless someone's lived as an adult for at least 5 years under both systems, he's got no idea what he's talking about.

The good thing about the US is that we can still change things. It's going to take an intellectual guerrilla war, and a low-level cultural realization that many of our institutions (I'm thinking cultural more than governmental: Universities, for example). Universities in the US have gotten insanely expensive and exist mostly as a badge of social honor. If you can say you graduated from Harvard, or even better, Stanford, then you are pre-qualified to a whole lot of elites, but at the same time, they create these pockets of people who could not otherwise function in society. I have a relative who's a college prof and served for a time as chair of his department, and it's unreal. You think corporate America is full of incompetence, try being department chair at a university. Someone really needs to make "Office Space" for the academic world.

Post: #18

Were it not for their problematic theology that are at odds with the reformed tradition I will definitely join.

Post: #19

If you feel compelled to ban speech, that you are going backwards not the other way around.

Post: #20

Soup, are you referring to Russia?(cant seem to quote from my phone)

The West has its own way of banning speech/ideas too: political correctness.

I disagree with the idea that Russia is 'bad' compared to the West, as the West has many actually bad practices and incidents for which they are responsible. They use propaganda effectively to change society's view of what they do.

Post: #21

Some people seem to think that Russians are "suffering" under the rule of Putin and they would like to have a American or European system. This is not accurate.

It's often forgetten that Russians are a hardnecked people. Those who've spent time in Russia have for sure met a lot of girls or guys who had a much tougher time growing up than the avarage European. A lot of girls are much "stronger" than the average European or American male. Especially those who grew up during the 90's.

Russians are a winning people and also very traditional and proud. Especially when it comes to family values.
The mocking of Conchita Würst is not a joke. Russian people think, has Europe really fallen this far away from the ladder?

It's often forgotten that Russians really are so conservative and traditional.

However Russia is a strange country. Not easy to understand why they are doing things as they do.

Post: #22

Russians are easy to understand. They live for the moment. They enjoy life to its extremes and don't give a fuck about tomorrow, as we all should!
You don't know Russians until you've sat in their kitchens, eaten the best of food they've laid out, and gotten totally smashed with them!
(gotta politely refuse heroin from some of the younger ones though)

Post: #23

(06-07-2014 10:15 AM)Mekorig Wrote:  

(06-06-2014 08:51 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:  As sad as this may sound, I would take Putin as a dictator over the current "Democratic-Republic" in the U.S. if that meant seeing my community and its subsequent values restored.

I have to disagree with you. With all their faults, i can assure you, you do not want either a typical dictator, or a thugocracy like Putin`s. The US have no knowledge on what is really a dictatorship.

the USA is a thugocracy, you may complain about Putin but the USA knows more about each of its citizens then Russia does. In fact despite you being in Argentina, the USA probably knows about your bowel movements

Post: #24

(08-11-2014 05:53 AM)bojangles Wrote:  

(06-07-2014 10:15 AM)Mekorig Wrote:  

(06-06-2014 08:51 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:  As sad as this may sound, I would take Putin as a dictator over the current "Democratic-Republic" in the U.S. if that meant seeing my community and its subsequent values restored.

I have to disagree with you. With all their faults, i can assure you, you do not want either a typical dictator, or a thugocracy like Putin`s. The US have no knowledge on what is really a dictatorship.

the USA is a thugocracy, you may complain about Putin but the USA knows more about each of its citizens then Russia does. In fact despite you being in Argentina, the USA probably knows about your bowel movements

Really? You think i should seek advice with the US Embassy about getting more fiber to my diet?

Post: #25

(06-08-2014 05:32 PM)All or Nothing Wrote:  

(06-08-2014 08:05 AM)Orion Wrote:  Your government doesn't owe shit to you, and hence it won't grant shit to you if it doesn't have to. If rights granted to you by an institution is "freedom" to you, than you are in a sad and pathetic state of mind.

Actually, if I pay taxes and live as a healthy law abiding citizen, the government does owe me basic rights.

Government is a more modern term for "ruling class".

The ruling class is allowed to exist by the good will of the common people.

What happens when the ruling class abuses the common people for too long and their good will ceases to exist completely?

History books will give you the answer. I am not saying that the U.S. is that way currently, but it is certainly following history.

Seeing government as an absolute authority over your life, and that if you pay this authority an annual stipend with the expectation that your way of life will be allowed to continue, then I must disagree with you completely.

Freedom IS philosophical.
You either see truth as your authority,
Or bow to the authority that define your truth.

Having complete freedom over your own life is probably the most responsibility-demanding lifestyle anyone can be born into.

Russians have learned from their mistakes. Soon, Americans will have too as well.